The present invention relates generally to terrestrial television broadcast networks, and in particular relates to a new paradigm for terrestrial broadcasting in the Internet Age.
The United States had the honor of being the first country to develop and adopt a Digital TV system. In fact when the United States embarked on exploring the opportunities for an “Advanced Television” standard, the world was still largely analog. Since that time, however, the advances in technology and the maturing of the Internet have presented serious challenges to the continued competitiveness and relevance of traditional terrestrial broadcasting in the 21st century.
Today many countries have already adopted and even deployed a second generation terrestrial DTV standard. None of these are IP Network centric or aware in nature, and little or no thought was given to interworking with other IP based communication networks. They effectively exist as islands in the internet age. The ATSC is now considering a non-backwardly compatible next generation DTV Standard, ATSC 3.0. ATSC's 8-VSB (A/53), the first generation modulation method used for broadcast in the ATSC digital television standard, is monolithic in purpose and very inflexible, therefore driving a non-backwardly compatible solution being sought. Today the art of ‘being digital’ is the norm and is expected by consumers, the PC is being displaced by computing tablets and smartphone devices attached to a world-wide IP network of cloud servers that are always connected. The present inventors believe that a real opportunity exists to create a new paradigm that is truly useful for the continued existence of terrestrial broadcasting in the Internet Age.
Terrestrial broadcasting today is a “one-shot” event with a signal transmitted from an isolated island (non IP Network aware) transmitter that emits a radio wave with hopes that the signal will be received somewhere inside a geographically limited coverage area and the content viewed by someone. In the current broadcast model (last 60 years), a broadcaster occupies an entire broadcast channel (e.g., 6 MHz in the USA) for its exclusive use 24×7 even though, for many TV stations, a small number of programs generate the majority of revenue and profit using the current monolithic standard. The viewing tally (i.e. ratings) is done statistically with insignificant numerical data, in non-real-time and is reported to the broadcaster by an independent entity sometime in the future (e.g. the next day). In the age of Big Data, it is mission critical to have a deep knowledge of one's audience and real-time analytics, which for instance drives targeted advertisements and/or new forms of local news and engaging entertainment, etc. These are features commensurate with the capabilities of the broadcast Virtualized IP Core network to be discussed and are relevant in today's media content provider environment.
Some local broadcasters are dabbling with web sites and social media networks and even online streaming of content to augment and adapt to the internet age, but largely this activity is independent of their core economic drivers. But instead of this independent dabbling, what is really needed is a focused “holistic” approach to the development of a new terrestrial DTV Standard and platform that closely integrates and harmonizes broadcasting and the Internet (Web). The objective of making content easy to receive on multiple device types over various delivery channels and physical ‘bearer’ layers and synchronously presented today as native HTML5 elements (Video/Audio, etc.) of a web browser using extensions to W3C web technology is essential. As well, the ability to evolve as these other delivery channels and physical ‘bearer’ layers evolve becomes essential. This requires changes to the traditional broadcast architecture which needs to include elements such as the inclusion of a virtualized IP Core network. To enable a cost-effective, consumer friendly and viable new eco-system, the virtualized IP Core network may well become a shared entity of the broadcasters in a market or region of the country. The IP Core network abstracts the complexity of the physical radio layer (which also can be shared efficiently) and enables broadcasters to remain totally independent (virtualized) and competitive but able to share in the advantages of a malleable virtualized IP core network fabric and take a giant step forward as an industry to offer services that are more consumer friendly. Nowadays, consumers do not care how content is delivered. Rather, consumers just want to have easy and ubiquitous access to content on a variety of devices using technology that keeps pace with, and uses the same web tools as, the Internet.